“ JE SUIS BELLE, Ô MORTELS! ”
June 3, 2024 — July 31, 2024
The Imperial Art gallery is pleased to present two enigmatic and rare portraits of black women painted in the second half of the 19th century.
The woman with the gold grain necklace is the work of the academic portrait painter Édouard Dubufe (1819-1883), famous for his portraits of high society women with shimmering toilets. The woman with the gold grain necklace, a painting presented at the Toulouse Fine Arts exhibition in 1864 under the title "A Negress", fascinates with its truth. A dignified and elegant woman, the portrait stands out singularly from the usual representations of black women at the same time. A burst of genius from Dubufe, the work questions the place of newly freed black people in French society of the Second Empire.
Young Woman with a Yellow Turban is the work of a woman artist, Louise Faulque (1855-1914), who exhibited at the Salon and whose artistic career is still to be written. This painting, which received a second class silver medal during its exhibition at Versailles in 1884, demonstrates great modernity in the study of the living model. The gaze of a woman painter on another woman, the black model, under the skillful brush of Louise Faulque, gains immortality. It is also a subject very rarely represented by women artists in the 19th century.
Haughty women, the two models wear their origins with pride and seem to whisper:
“I am beautiful, O mortals!”
“ JE SUIS BELLE, Ô MORTELS! ”
June 3, 2024 — July 31, 2024
Event exhibition of two enigmatic and rare portraits of black women painted in the second half of the 19th century and rediscovered by the Imperial Art Gallery.
The woman with the gold grain necklace is the work of the academic portrait painter Édouard Dubufe (1819-1883), famous for his portraits of high society women with shimmering toilets. The woman with the gold grain necklace, a painting presented at the Toulouse Fine Arts exhibition in 1864 under the title "A Negress", fascinates with its truth. A dignified and elegant woman, the portrait stands out singularly from the usual representations of black women at the same time. A burst of genius from Dubufe, the work questions the place of newly freed black people in French society of the Second Empire.
Young Woman with a Yellow Turban is the work of a woman artist, Louise Faulque (1855-1914), who exhibited at the Salon and whose artistic career is still to be written. This painting, which received a second class silver medal during its exhibition at Versailles in 1884, demonstrates great modernity in the study of the living model. The gaze of a woman painter on another woman, the black model, under the skillful brush of Louise Faulque, gains immortality. It is also a subject very rarely represented by women artists in the 19th century.
Haughty women, the two models wear their origins with pride and seem to whisper:
“I am beautiful, O mortals!”
“ JE SUIS BELLE, Ô MORTELS! ”
June 3, 2024 — July 31, 2024
Event exhibition of two enigmatic and rare portraits of black women painted in the second half of the 19th century and rediscovered by the Imperial Art Gallery.
The woman with the gold grain necklace is the work of the academic portrait painter Édouard Dubufe (1819-1883), famous for his portraits of high society women with shimmering toilets. The woman with the gold grain necklace, a painting presented at the Toulouse Fine Arts exhibition in 1864 under the title "A Negress", fascinates with its truth. A dignified and elegant woman, the portrait stands out singularly from the usual representations of black women at the same time. A burst of genius from Dubufe, the work questions the place of newly freed black people in French society of the Second Empire.
Young Woman with a Yellow Turban is the work of a woman artist, Louise Faulque (1855-1914), who exhibited at the Salon and whose artistic career is still to be written. This painting, which received a second class silver medal during its exhibition at Versailles in 1884, demonstrates great modernity in the study of the living model. The gaze of a woman painter on another woman, the black model, under the skillful brush of Louise Faulque, gains immortality. It is also a subject very rarely represented by women artists in the 19th century.
Haughty women, the two models wear their origins with pride and seem to whisper:
“I am beautiful, O mortals!”